Establishment And Free Exercise Thereof: What The First Amendment REALLY Is

I've never understood the mindset of people who claim that this isn't a Christian nation, or the religion was never meant to be part of government.

 

The "freedom of religion" part of the First Amendment is, in no way, a prohibition on religion in government. It is, however, a restriction on government in religion.

 

That restriction, known as the "establishment clause," means that the federal government cannot endorse a particular religion or sect over any other, nor can it require the people to worship a certain God, or require one to worship any God. A further prohibition on the establishment of its own religion, i.e., the Church of England, is intertwined with that.

 

The "free exercise" clause means exactly what it says - one is free to exercise one's religion freely, wherever and whenever one wants, provided that it does not endanger one's fellow citizens' lives. You can't hold Mass in the center lane of I-95, for example.

Separation of Church and State is an utter fallacy. It exists nowhere in our founding documents. The phrase itself is actually misquoted from a private letter Thomas Jefferson sent to the Danbury Baptist ministers responding to their fears that the U.S. government was about to choose an official religion. The actual phrase reads - "separation between Church and State."

 

That word "between" brings a whole new meaning to it, doesn't it?

 

What Jefferson meant - coincidentally, the over- and mis-used quote from the Treaty of Tripoli about the U.S. government not being founded on the Christian religion also means the same thing - that the Church (not religion) wasn't the government, as it was in so much of Europe at that time, therefore the government had no business or inclination to establish an official religion.

 

Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black coined the phrase "separation of Church and State," taking liberties with the meaning of the Constitution, despite having a reputation of being a literalist. As a member of the KKK (reputedly "just" to get votes), Black was very accustomed to taking liberties with the Constitution, despite his vote against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. For the record, Black was a veritable mass of contradictions.

 

To claim that religion and religious principles were never meant to be part of government is folly. Jefferson himself, a supposed atheist, attended Church services held in the Capitol Building, clearly disagreed with that sentiment.

 

Perhaps it's time to return to the vision of the Founders and Framers and stop thinking we know better what they meant than they did when they founded this nation and wrote the documents we're SUPPOSED to live by. ~ Hunter